Mighty Switch Force!

The 3rd entry in WayForward's Mighty series, it follows a female cyber-cop as she tries to recapture escaped convicts in a puzzle-platformer for the 3DS.

Nintendo 3DS eShop

Wii U

Overview

Mighty Switch Force is the third entry in WayForward Technologies' Mighty series and the first designed specifically for the Nintendo 3DS. The game was released on the 3DS eShop on December 22, 2011. An updated version featuring re-drawn sprites and system-specific features like Off-TV Play was released on the Wii U eShop as Mighty Switch Force HD on November 18, 2012, in time for the console's North American launch.

Gameplay

Mighty Switch Force is a side-scrolling platformer in which the player, as Patricia Wagon, must run, jump and shoot their way through levels in order to capture five escaped criminals. After the player collects all five criminals in the level, they need to locate Corporal Gendarmor in order to complete the stage. A radar displayed on the touch screen points toward the nearest prisoner/exit.

What makes Mighty Switch Force unique to its genre is the added ability to switch panels between the foreground and background at will. Panel switching is used for both traversing the environment and disposing of enemies. If an enemy (or the player) is standing in front of a background block when it is switched to the foreground, they are slammed into the front of the 3DS screen. Other blocks serve to propel the player and enemies in a particular direction; these blocks can be used in conjunction with the other panels to dispose of enemies or navigate to seemingly inaccessible areas of the stage. Another type of panel adding wrinkles to the gameplay is one which does not recede into the background when the player is standing on it and press the switch button. This allows players to have control over the patterns of panels as they switch back and forth, leading to more complex puzzles.

Each stage features a par time to beat, though completing a stage under the par time is not required in order to progress. Players can revisit any previously-beaten stage to try and beat the par time. Finishing under par leaves a little mark next to the stage number in the level select screen to indicate that players have achieved this feat.

DLC

At the outset, Mighty Switch Force was released with 16 "incidents". On May 24 2012, an updated version of Mighty Switch Force launched on the 3DS eShop. It offered 5 new incidents, enhanced 3D effects for all original levels and a retry button for speed-runs. The update was free of charge to all existing owners of the game and comes included in all new purchases.

Mighty Switch Force Hyper Drive Edition

The Wii U version of the game features artwork redrawn for display in HD, as well as all "Bonus Incident" stages from the updated 3DS version. The Hooligan Tracker is displayed on the GamePad. Optionally, the game can also fully be played on the GamePad screen via Off-TV Play, which then uses a smaller version of the Hooligan Tracker on the same screen.

A post-release patch added the option to play the game as "Pixel Patty."

Soundtrack

Mighty Switch Force's soundtrack was composed by WayForward's Jake Kaufman, taking on an electro-pop vibe reminiscent of the music found in Sonic The Hedgehog. Kaufman released the game's soundtrack on Bandcamp which includes seven remixed track by Surasshu and Coda , Electronic Wizards Cancel, Xaimus, and Jake himself.